


Four Letter Words in Purple Prose

by CelticxPanda



Series: The City is Contagious [1]
Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Aged-Up Turtles, F/M, First Meetings, Gen, Meet-Cute, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Self-Insert, book throwing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28172676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticxPanda/pseuds/CelticxPanda
Summary: In which the Night Shift Librarian teaches Donatello to respect the Dewey Decimal System, or suffer the consequences.
Relationships: Donatello (TMNT) & Original Female Character(s), Donatello (TMNT)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The City is Contagious [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2063859
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Four Letter Words in Purple Prose

Something wasn’t right.

Meg stared at the pile of books sitting beside the shelves. That had definitely not been there when she came in for work around 6, and it hadn’t been there when she did her rounds at 10, and no one had come into the library since 8. No one wanted to be in a small university library on a Friday night anyway. The place was practically always dead anyway. 

And yet, here she was, fifteen minutes to 3 in the morning, staring at a pile of books. She frowned, her brows furrowing. 

“What the fuck?” she muttered, squatting down to pick up the books. She looked them over, trying to suss out what was going on, or who had been in here. The covers proclaimed knowledge of programming and engineering of the electrical and robotic kind. Was someone doing a project in robotics? That didn’t seem like a major that the university had. This wasn’t a research or technical college, just a small -- but very old and expensive -- liberal arts school. The students here were more likely to argue about the ethics of cyborgs than they were to build an actual robot. 

Either way, Meg was mostly just pissed that the damned bastard had the audacity to just leave his books piled up like this instead of putting them back properly, or at the very least putting them on a shelving cart. Wasn’t like there was one like, five feet away or anything. Punk ass bitch.

Meg sighed, gathering up as many books in her arms as she could, noting with interest that some of them had been left open. Almost as if the person who’d been reading them left in a hurry. She glanced around, not seeing any bags or laptops or anything else denoting that the books had only been left temporarily. 

Sighing again, she carted the books off to the circulation desk where she’d sort them and return them to their shelves in due time. But for now, it was time to go home. 

She gathered her things, made sure to set the alarm and lock the door behind her, and left for her apartment. As she made her way down the stone steps, however, Meg felt someone’s eyes on her. She glanced around, finding the courtyard deserted. Suspicious, she turned to look over her shoulder at the roof of the library and the gothic gargoyles that guarded it. Nothing. Nothing she could see, anyway. 

Shuddering, Meg pulled her denim jacket tighter around her and stomped away.

It happened again the next night, and then again Monday night. Meg was starting to get frustrated. It was clearly the same person, too, since the books were always the same -- save for a smattering of chemistry and auto maintenance books thrown in the mix. Meg brought it up with the head librarian when she came in for her Tuesday shift, who mentioned that the opening shift had found a pile of books on Monday, but assumed someone had just been lazy the day before. Meg knew there was something sketchy going on. The library closed early on Sunday, so she never had a shift on Sundays. The only reason the pile was there when the morning shift came in was because she hadn’t been there that night to catch the fucker who kept sneaking in. 

That night, Meg spent her first rounds paying more attention to where the interloper might be entering the library. None of the windows opened, so they couldn’t be coming in that way. There were several skylights, but Meg was fairly certain those didn’t open. Even if they did, that was a long way to fall. No one would be able to survive that without breaking multiple bones. 

She frowned, sitting at the desk with arms crossed. What the hell was going on in her library? She was starting to think it was haunted. The building was certainly old enough to have a ghost or two in it. Still, if that was the case these kinds of phenomena would have been happening for a lot longer, right? 

Sometime around midnight, in the middle of her thinking, Meg heard the muffled sound of something hitting the floor somewhere in the library. She paused, listening carefully. Nothing followed the sound, but things didn’t just fall for no reason, right? 

She stood, carefully making her way in the general direction of the sound. Thinking quickly, she grabbed a fire poker from the decorative fireplace in front of the circulation desk. Better safe than sorry, right? Whoever was sneaking in clearly didn’t want to get caught, and therefore, might be dangerous if she did manage to find them. 

Potential weapon in hand, Meg peaked around the corner just before the spot where the books were normally found. What she saw was a shock, even to someone who’d lived in New York City for years at this point. 

Sitting on the floor surrounded by books was a large, anthropomorphic turtle with a very long and well worn stick strapped to its back. A purple bandana covered its eyes in what seemed to be a misguided attempt to hide its identity. Fat good that did, seeing as it was a Giant, Anthropomorphic Turtle Man. At least, Meg thought it was a man. Hard to tell with turtles, you know. 

Meg certainly understood why he was sneaking in, though. Not like you could waltz down the street looking like that. 

Pinching herself to make sure it wasn’t a dream (it wasn’t), Meg turned the corner, marching towards the turtle man with the determination of a Southern Girl with a Bone to Pick. “Oi! You!” 

The turtle man flinched at the sound of her voice, turning to stare at her wide-eyed for just a moment. 

“The hell are you doing?” Meg demanded. “Sneaking in here and leaving a mess of our books? The hell are you?”

The turtle man yelped -- and given the sound of his voice Meg was fairly certain she was right about it being a man, but still, you could never really tell without asking -- and scrambled up. And up he kept scrambling, parkouring off tables and shelves until he’d somehow manage to get up to those damn skylights that Meg had been suspicious of.

Well, that explained how he could get down from the roof without breaking his bones. 

“Bitch-ass Motherfucker!” Meg shouted, “Get back down here and pick up your mess! I will teach you to respect the Dewey Decimal System, so help me god!” 

The turtle ignored her, popping open one of the skylights and slipping out onto the roof. Now royally pissed, Meg ran -- something she loathed to do in most circumstances -- out the front door, fire poker still in hand. She turned, squinting up at the roof of the building, but she couldn’t spot the turtle man anywhere. 

“Mother fuck,” Meg cursed under her breath. Now what was she supposed to do? She couldn’t tell anyone about this. She’d look insane! Or at the very least like she’d been on drugs or something. And that was the last thing she needed when she was so close to getting her damned Master’s. She needed to keep this job, and the tuition waiver it gave her. It’d been hard enough to get into the school’s Master’s program even with her grades and her job on campus. She couldn’t imagine how hard it’d be if she had to reapply after getting kicked the fuck out of the work-study program for ‘gross misconduct’ or whatever legal jargon they used for ‘said some weird shit so she’s clearly on the Good Shit’. 

Meg groaned, trudging dejectedly back inside to finish her shift. At least when she went home she could commiserate with her roommate. 

“Robin, you’re not gonna believe what I had to deal with at work,” Meg said the moment she opened the door to the apartment. 

Robin, who was currently sitting upside down the couch, looked over with a drama-hungry expression. “Whuh?”

Meg kicked off her shoes and hung up her jacked on the coat rack as she explained. “Okay, so first off, you know that asshole I’ve been complaining about who’s not been putting the books back on the shelves properly...or even putting them on the reshelving cart like five feet away?” 

“Yuh.”

Meg took a deep breath, trying to find the best way to say it. “Well, turns out, he’s a fucking turtle.” 

Robin’s brows furrowed as a look of absolute confusion passed over her face, made funnier by the fact she was currently doing an impression of a bat. “He’s doing what to a turtle?!”

“He’s not _fucking a turtle_!” Meg said, louder than necessary because that’s just who she was. “He’s _a fucking turtle_!” 

“Ohhhhh,” Robin said, understanding now. There was a pause, a thoughtful look passing over her face. “You know that guy that I think is following me?”

Meg nodded, for she was the Friend Who Remembers. “The one who beat up the other guy following you, yeah.”

“...I think he’s also a turtle.”

Meg and Robin stared at each other.

“What are the odds that they’re the same turtle?” Robin asked.

“Unlikely,” Meg said. “You got home before me at what? Eleven at night? And my turtle had to be in the library between ten and three. Granted, it’s more likely than there being more than one turtle man.” 

“Yeah,” Robin agreed, sitting up properly. “I mean, there’s no way there’s more than one of those, right?”

“No way in hell.”

Meg was going to catch the turtle man tonight. She just knew it. 

Robin had asked what she was going to do when she caught the turtle man, and Meg didn’t necessarily have an answer for her. For a moment she considered getting a picture as proof to show the head librarian -- and maybe to sell to the tabloids for some cash -- but decided that was kind of dumb. Turning him into the police for breaking and entering also crossed her mind, but the police around here were ineffectual at best and downright malicious at worst. They were liable to shoot the turtle man on sight, which was the last thing Meg wanted. 

In the end, she was back to where she started: wanting the damn idiot to clean up after himself. She was going to make him put his damned books back properly. 

She waited, and listened, for the signs of entry. Sometime around midnight, she heard it: the ever-so-faint creaking of old wood under feet. Then, the soft padding of feet coming towards her. Were it any other time of the day, she likely wouldn’t have been able to hear it. But it was midnight, and there was no one else around. Now that the turtle man knew she knew he was here, he likely wanted to make sure she wasn’t paying attention.

She stood, moving to hide herself behind the various library accoutrements behind the circulation desk. Pulling out her phone, she turned on the camera, hoping to catch a glimpse of the turtle before he found her. 

She watched her phone screen, waiting with baited breath.

There! The turtle man peeked over the desk, a look of confusion passing over his face when he didn’t see her. He turned, looking around, and Meg took her chance to strike.

Jumping up as best as she could, Meg pointed dramatically at the turtle man, face alight with manic justice. “Ah-HA!”

“AH!” the turtle man shouted, startled. He turned to run away, but Meg was quicker -- likely because she was not a turtle person and therefore had a speed advantage. She picked up the nearest book -- an encyclopedia of some kind -- and hurled it at the turtle man, shouting with victory as it beaned him in the back of the head. 

The turtle man yelped, skidding to a stop as he clutched at the back of his head, giving Meg plenty of time to run around the circulation desk. He turned, shooting her a disbelieving look.

“Did you just throw a dictionary at me?” he asked incredulously.

“Encyclopedia, actually,” Meg clarified. “Dictionaries tend to be too thick to wrap your hand around, ya know. Certain encyclopedic volumes are much thinner, so you can really heft it.”

The turtle man continued to stare at her, utterly confused.

“Anyway, as I was saying: ah-ha!” Meg pointed dramatically at the turtle man once more. “Caught you, you bastard you!”

“Well. Not yet you haven’t,” the turtle man pointed out. “You’ve caught up to me, but only because I stopped running.”

Meg leveled him with an unimpressed look. Reaching out, she wrapped her hands around one of his wrists. She then repeated her statement in the same grandiose tone. “Ah-ha! Caught you, you bastard you!” 

The turtle man looked entirely unsure how to process what was happening. “Okay. Now what are you going to do?” 

“Well,” Meg admitted, “I was going to make you clean up after yourself for once, you inconsiderate dick waffle, but you haven’t pulled any books out yet.

“So I guess I’ll just have to stay with you until you’re done and then make you put your books back properly.” 

“Um...okay?”

“Cool. I’m Meg, by the way. You got a name?”

The turtle man smiled. “I’m Donatello, but you can call me Donnie.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, yes, it is I, CelticxPanda, simping for turtles in this year of our lord 2020. Have some self-insert nonsense that will end up being a series of interconnected one-shots with my friends' self-insert nonsense. You're welcome


End file.
